Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

64 The Way of Individuation
ers and stand on his own feet. All collective identities, such as
membership in organizations, support of “isms,” and so on, interfere
with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are
crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries
for the irresponsible. 51
On the other hand, Jung also made it clear that he was not advising
people to become antisocial eccentrics. Always he insisted that
one must adapt to both inner and outer reality. We cannot individuate
in a corner; we need the mirror provided by other people as well
as that of the unconscious. Our task, and no easy one at that, is to
sort out the reflections.
Marie-Louise von Franz, who worked closely with Jung for over
thirty years, when asked to comment on what Jung meant by individuation,
said the following:
Individuation means being yourself, becoming yourself. Nowadays
one always uses the cheap word “self-realization,” but what one
really means is ego-realization. Jung means something quite different.
He means the realization of one’s own predestined development.
That does not always suit the ego, but it is what one intrinsically
feels could or should be. We are neurotic when we are not
what God meant us to be. Basically, that’s what individuation is all
about. One lives one’s destiny. Then usually one is more humane,
less criminal, less destructive to one’s environment. 52
Many years ago, when I had nowhere to go but up, my analyst
said to me: “Think of what you’ve been, what you are now, and
what you could be.” I still find this a useful reflective exercise in
terms of orienting myself on the continuum that is my personal
journey of individuation.
51 Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 342.
52 “The Geography of the Soul,” interview in In Touch, Summer 1993, p. 12.